Thanks and good bye!

[TitanTim]

An m135 4wd in auto would do us nicely. It would be a nice replacement for my wife's Quattro !
Until BMW get their act together, a 135 is a non starter for us.

4WD and Auto would kill the fun though

Tim.

[ronk]

Faster when its slippy tho!

Testers alway seem to drive a 4WD like a RWD car i.e. power on to get the tail out, and keep it out but In normal road use, Quattro is best at going in at a good speed with moderate/light throttle and getting the power on coming out of the corner early.
Ive never driven the Quattro on a track so I can't comment that scenario.

Its still fun and it's faster - It may not be showboating!

As for the Auto bit , its been done to death but here's a question for you, on the Autobahn in your in you manual M135, you want to accelerate as hard as you can. You are doing 100mph, What gear would you change down to?

Anyway the spec for her new car is not something i can determine - I can only have some influence but she has her own mind and a 4wd Auto it is! (Oh and sat nav)

[Machine monkey]

An m135 4wd in auto would do us nicely. It would be a nice replacement for my wife's Quattro !
Until BMW get their act together, a 135 is a non starter for us.

4WD and Auto would kill the fun though

Tim.

We gave an auto TT and it's a diesel. Still loads of fun!!

[ronk]

We gave an auto TT and it's a diesel. Still loads of fun!!

3.0 TDi V6 in my wife's car!

As much BHP as my BMW 3.0 six but 45 mpg if that really bothers you - but real grunt!

[xpar1]

Don't know what discounts you can get on S3s but if closer to the 1 Series I would be seriously tempted next time around Always loved my old A3 1.8T Sport but were sensible prices new back then.

Tim.

Well if you look at the M135i here M135i deal I got a 3 door S3 with a few options and after a lot of pushing for £2k more.

The big selling point was when I looked at the used prices, three year old, old shape S3's are still fetching £20+k. Used prices So a loss of £8k in three years is a no brainer! Some cars lose that in the first year.

[ronk]

----- the S3 does appeal simply for its year round capability which makes Beemers a pain come winter and faffing with winter tyres. ----

Although we run our Quattro A4 on vredestein sessanta all year round (I've got a disco 3 on winters) it's still occasionally driven on snow an ice and while it has enough traction to get going when other 2wd would flounder (especially a BMW on runflats) it has the same braking ability as any other non winter tyre equipped car.

If it was our only car, it would get winter rubber.